A Quiet Place: Day One

Even though i enjoy living in a city and experience city life where i can go to the cinema whenever i want, perhaps go out to any restaurant or watch a live concert with a music band i enjoy, i also enjoy going to a lake and just relax. Fixing up a fire, barbecue some vegetables, some meat and bring potato sallad while you get away from all the big noises of the city and don´t need to think about time or stress. It is also nice to give fishing a try as well in case you might get a chance to barbecue some fish while you still have a fire going. In the 80´s and the early 90´s i used to spend a lot of summers around the lake Bysjön in Värmland here in Sweden. Not only would we fish there we would also walk along the forest looking for blueberries and mushrooms. Of course there are people out there who wouldn´t go to a lake or any forest, since they have other ways to relax and that´s completely fine. Everyone finds different ways to see what makes them feel relaxed and it´s good no matter what you choose to do. But what if you one day discovered that the end of humanity may be upon us if you make just a noice, you may be attacked and killed by an unknown creature? That is exactly what happened in the 2018 post-apocalyptic horror film known as A Quite Place from director John Krasinski ( perhaps most known for his iconic rolle as Jim Halpert in the comedy TV series The Office ). A Quiet Place turned out to be one of the most interesting horror films of 2018 for trying a completely different approach in the post-apocalyptic genre than we have seen before with really powerful acting performances and really good CGI effects. The 2020 sequel A Quiet Place Part II also directed by John Krasinski turned out to be a really good sequel. So here we are in 2024 with a prequel to these films simply called A Quiet Place: Day One, a film that is supposed to tell the story how it all started as these creatures started taking over the world. Since i have seen the previous films in cinema i had to see this one as well on the big screen. Is this a really good prequel or is this a film that we didn´t need in the A Quiet Place franchise at all?

Samira "Sam" ( Lupita Nyong´o ), a pessimistic, terminally ill cancer patient, lives at a hospice outside New York with her cat, Frodo. Reuben ( Alex Wolff ), a nurse, convinces a reluctant Sam to join a group outing to a marionette show in Manhattan. While in the city, the group notices meteor-like objects falling from the sky. Shortly after, hostile extraterrestrial attack the gathered crowd. An ambulance explode and knocks Sam unconscious. Sam later wakes up inside the theatre with Frodo and other survivors. She and the remaining survivors have no other option but try and survive, even though Sam is already struggling with her cancer illness.

Prequels are quite tricky to pull off, especially if you are going to tell a story that happened before the original A Quite Place film started back in 2018. This prequel actually manage to tell a story from a completely different angle compared to the previous films. Of course the circumstances of the young woman this film is focused on is very sad considering she is terminally ill, but i do feel this is a very important detail because it raises a lot of questions. How do you survive a war out there when you are suffering already and your body is dying? How do you deal mentally with the situation knowing that this will only end in one way? There are other questions that may be asked along the way but as a survival horror film i have to say A Quite Place: Day One manage to put all the right pieces together. You have some nicely created horror scenes in this film as humans are being attacked by these creatures. It may not be a very bloody film to be honest and that´s ok, what matters is that the horror scenes are effective. Lead actress Lupita Nyong´o ( who played the cool character Nakia in the Black Panther films ) gives a strong performance as the terminally ill character Sam. I feel that she really captured the mentality of a terminally ill patient and the struggles she have every single day. There are other really good characters here such as Henri played by actor Dijmon Hounsou ( well known from classic films such as Stargate, Gladiator, Constantine, Blood Diamond and many more ). Actor Joseph Quinn also deliver a solid performance who i know from the Netflix TV series Stranger Things. So the question is does this prequel work better than the previous films? No, i think this prequel may not be as strong as those films proved to be. But i still feel this is a really good horror film from director Michael Sarnoski that proves there is a future for the franchise of A Quite Place. A prequel you should see no matter where you watch it on streaming or physical media, one of the better horror releases this year so far. A Quiet Place: Day One proves that horror can still be made on a high quality level of film making.

Rating: DDDD